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We nipped along to Central Saint Martins yesterday to catch a free lunchtime talk by the utterly wonderful Brian Bolland, one of the finest comic book artists in the world, and officially a Very Nice Guy. He created the sublime The Killing Joke
(above, written by Alan Moore, the guy behind Watchmen, V for Vendetta
and a host of other classics), as well as being one of the principal artists on 2000AD, particularly on Judge Dredd, and doing extensive work for DC on Animal Man, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern and The Invisibles.

Bolland was talking about work from right across his career, and showed early draft work as well as finished pieces. He did a postgrad graphics course at Central Saint Martins in 1974, having previously studied at Leicester School of Art and Norwich School of Art; and had spent his early career working out of his room at 110 Southampton Row, just yards from where the talk was taking place.

He's best known for his beautifully controlled pen and ink work, though he now works entirely in Photoshop, using a Wacom tablet and pen. Check out his site for some really in-depth (and entertaining) step by step tutorials showing his working process, as well as a huge gallery of work.

Bolland stressed the importance of life drawing, having spent at least one day a week on it at college. It was sobering to hear the silence when he asked who in the room (which largely consisted of illustration students) was doing life drawing.

We're just listening to the new GorillazPlastic Beach
album in the studio (it's being previewed on the Guardian's site, and comes out on 8 March). As expected, the album's a delicious fusion of styles and artists, including collaborations with Snoop Dogg, Kano, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Mark E Smith, Lou Reed, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon. Not a bad crowd to make some tunes with.

Incredibly, it's ten years since Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett launched 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russell on the world, with the Tomorrow Comes Today EP. Back then the world's first virtual band sounded like an amusing side project, a way for Albarn to flex his musical muscles without having to engage with the usual PR circus that accompanied every new Blur* album, and for Hewlett to stretch his legs away from the comic page (where he was best known for his Tank Girl strip).

But blimey, Gorillaz developed into so much more than that, producing two truly fantastic albums, Gorillaz
and Demon Days, some killer videos, some pioneering 'live' shows; and in the process picked up the Designer of the Year award for Hewlett in 2006. All the while, they manage to appeal to both kids and adults, which is a damn fine trick.

Frankly it's just great to watch two extraordinary talents at the top of their game.

Wired magazine has always been one of our favourite reads, so we were dead glad when they launched their new UK edition last month. As usual, the magazine's a mix of ideas, technology, culture and business (as it says on the cover), but now with a bit more of a British twist, both in terms of content and contributors.

We grabbed their rather fine subscription offer (£2 per issue), which means that the latest issue arrived by post. And just how brilliant is it that ripping open the mailer (above) revealed the Superman logo, just as if Clark Kent were tearing open his shirt? Clever stuff.

This looks like it should be really interesting: More 4 are showing the award winning documentary Here's Johnny (February 17, 10pm) about the comic book / horror artist John Hicklenton.

Hicklenton has worked on raft of fantastic strips, including the daddy of British comics, 2000AD, and the groundbreaking Crisis. He's also suffering from MS, and the show explores both his work and the frustrations of living with the disease.

So, for most designers, the iPhone is the mobile of choice. But for most of those designers, the phone's camera is, well, rubbish: just 2 megapixels, and a cruddy lens to boot.

But, help has arrived in the form of a couple of deeply tasty downloadable apps that let you process your shots on the phone. We've secured the services of two 'resting' members of top pop combo Gorillaz (2D and Murdoc) to demonstrate those apps.

First up is 2D and the delicious QuadCamera from Art&Mobile. This application lets you fire off a salvo of shots, just like you might with a Lomo Super Sampler toy camera. Utterly brilliant. You can adjust how fast they shoot; which layout they come in (a rectangle of four, four in a row, a rectangle of eight, or eight in a row); and whether they're colour or greyscale.

We've pushed the colour/contrast on the shots above (using Photoshop), but even without doing that, they look great.

Fantastically, once you've got them on your computer, you can download the free QuadAnimator application to create gif animations of your shots. Eat your heart out Michel Gondry. Can't wait to see the first promo shot like this...

Next up is Nevercenter'sCameraBag app, which lets you apply some groovy filters to your shots, re-creating a whole variety of retro styles like Holga, Fisheye, and Lomo. (We're guessing there's some kind of copyright reason for them renaming Holga to Helga and Lomo to Lolo). It's still a bit buggy, but generally does great stuff. Here's a selection of shots of Murdoc using some of our favourites.

It's a fantastic show, featuring a few site specific installations, and a host of new canvases based on Spiderman and Superman comics, all D*Faced. The entire show had pretty much sold (since this was the opening, we're guessing through some private collectors) which isn't bad going.

If you were a British teenager in the early 80's, and into comics, then you were almost certainly a fan of 2000AD. We still have fond memories of tearing down to the local newsagent on a Saturday morning to pick up the latest weekly issue. It cost 24p "in Earth money" back in 1985 - amazingly it's still going strong, though a copy will set you back £1.75 now.

BBC4 is currently running a great series all about the British comics industry, Comics Britannia. We missed the first episode, but caught the middle one (which is repeated on Wednesday 19 at 11.30pm), and are totally looking forward to the third and final one, which deals with 2000AD, Viz, and the growth of the graphic novel. You can catch it on Monday 24 at 10.30pm. There's also a season of related programmes to sink your teeth into.

Splundig vur thrigg!

(The frame above is from Prog 500 of 2000AD, which featured the debut of Bad Company, written by Pete Milligan, with artwork by Brett Ewins and Jim McCarthy.)

Rooting around amongst our old comic collection (see the post below), we also stumbled on this copy of 2000AD, which was the British comic we (and how many other UK graphic designers?) grew up on more than any other. We can't quite believe it's twenty years old already, nor that the title is celebrating its thirtieth birthday this year.

This particular issue (or Prog) was their 500th, with a glossy cover for the first time - we think we can name all the characters except for the chap at bottom left (who hell he?): left to right on each row:
Judge Hershey, Torquemada and Ro Jaws, Dan Dare, Hammerstein (ABC Warriors), Judge Death, Ace Trucking, Slaine, Halo Jones, Rogue Trooper, Judge Anderson, Kano (Bad Company), Sooner or Later, Fink Angel, Tharg, D.R. and Quinch, ?, Mean Machine Angel, Nemesis, Judge Dredd, Johnny Alpha (Strontium Dog).

There were some really fantastic stories and artists in 2000AD, and Gorillaz artist (and Designer of the Year) Jamie Hewlett popped up in it for a while on a story called Hewligan's Haircut. Our favourites from way back then were Zenith, Devlin Waugh, Rogue Trooper and Bad Company.

Oh, and this place has a good collection of original art from the comic.